It's been a while since we've taken a look at a new cooler from Zalman, so when we heard the CNPS8700 LED was being shipped to us we were interested to get it onto the test bench and see how it performed. In the past we've had some very good experiences with Zalman products, and have put up some great temperatures in the process.

Anyone who is looking for a new high-performance cooler usually thinks of a company like Zalman first, which have produced cooler after cooler that have performed very well, they have set the bar high for themselves, let's see if the CNPS8700 LED is another in a long list of high-performance coolers, or if it's going to fall short, only one way to find out.....keep reading.

As soon as you open the box, you realize this cooler looks like other Zalman's we've taken a look at in the past, one main difference is this is a completely copper cooler, it also features heatpipes like a lot of coolers these days have.

CNPS8700 LED Box (Front)

CNPS8700 LED Box (Back)

The next pictures show that the CNPS8700 is similar to older Zalman coolers with its "flower" shaping; you can see the heatpipes and the full-copper design.

Zalman CNPS8700 LED Top

Zalman CNPS8700 LED Bottom

As you can see in the below pictures, the heatpipes are a big difference between the CNPS8700 and some of the earlier Zalman coolers of similar shapes, the heatpipes should provide a bit better cooling.

CNPS8700 LED Fins

CNPS8700 LED Heatpipes

The next pictures show the standard Zalman fan, it also comes with a Fan Mate 2 controller to help with noise, you can make this cooler virtually silent with the Fan Mate 2 by slowing the fan way down to around 1150 RPM, and if you need the cooling you can crank it up to 2300 RPM, at max speed you can hear the cooler although it's really not too noisy at all, but silent is definitely nice if you have an already quiet system, but in majority of setups I'd assume even at max speed this cooler isn't going to be as loud as other components.